[-empyre-] Digital Objects

[sally jane norman]

Dear Ashley, all

good question indeed - I'm wondering whether looking at Thrift and
Dewsbury's "non-representational theory" mightn't offer some useful
insights?  This entails focus on practices and relations (across human and
non-human actants), rather than on their results per se... insofar as the
latter are even ascertainable or vaguely useful, a doubt which seems to
underpin your question, Ashley?  Remains the problem of ascribing some kind
of temporal framework to the observed process (rather than "stuff" or
object), in order to be able to analyse it as a salient entity. But at
least the problem itself is differently framed. I see Dewsbury/ Thrift's
philosophy as aligning with positions evoked in Daston and Galison's
"objectivity", where they draw distinctions between historic regimes of
value in scientific imaging traditions, roughly aligning with a
"representationalist" system (18thC "truth to nature", 19th "mechanical
objectivity", 20thC "trained judgement"), and with / versus the
contemporary "presentational" mode - which mobilises manipulation of
"objects" (data as generator of knowledge) and aesthetics (including
multimodal apprehensions).  Also with the issue that's frequently been
broached in philosophy of science,  of "representation and intervening"
(Hacking at al) as means to knowing.

Keen to hear how you might make a case for "digital objects", and whether
this might be bound up in framing systems that allow for their openly
processual attributes to be more explicitly taken into account (my
obsession, which I clumsily try to link to elusive notions of 'liveness').
Etienne Souriau talks about the need to think in terms of multiple,
simultaneous "modes of existence", where psychological, fantasmatic,
virtual, fictitious modes of existence might be at least as important as
those we tend to enthrone as supremely concrete. He suggests that if we
look at the relational rather than ontological qualities of the different
entities that exist, we might be able to come up with a more fittingly
dynamic vision/ sense of the world...

all best
sj

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-representational_theory#cite_note-5>

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 10:23 PM, Ashley Scarlett <ashley.scarlett at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> Dear --empyre-- members and invited discussants,
>
>
> Thank you for an engaging start to this month's conversation!
>
>
> I have a bit of a follow-up question that I feel engages several of the
> entries thus far and that, I hope, might get us talking about how to
> reconcile function and appearance. After posing my question, I will provide
> some context for it.
>
>
> ***
>
>
> Is framing digital phenomena as "objects" worthwhile? What work can the
> concept of "digital object" do for us, that an acknowledgement of perpetual
> processuality cannot?
>
>
> ***
>
>
> Because computer programs are largely founded upon the “presupposition of
> representation” (Hui 2012:345), much of the scholarship on digital objects
> has been limited to things that could be made visible to a user (Ange’s
> comment regarding his reason for back-end “crafting” seems relevant here).
> As several of the recent posts (Dragan, Andres, Hannah...) have
> articulated, this is a regrettably limited approach that is not able to
> account for the depth and processual complexity of digital
> objects/things/stuff/whatever.
>
>
>
> From hidden communication between smart devices to the algorithmic
> computation of actionable futures, many of the processes inherent to “the
> digital” are taking place outside of the phenomenal field of human
> perception. To this end, not only is the performative “stuff” of the
> digital functionally evasive, but the reiterative and regenerative
> executions that drive its operation also suggest that even when we do “see
> something,” it is nothing more than an ephemeral apparition.
>
>
>
> Now, with this being said - As Chun (2008) has discussed, and as Kristie
> and Dragan commented in their closing remarks (I think), despite the
> cascading complexity of the digital, and the dispersed apparatus that props
> it up, digital “stuff” *does* endure and frequently adopts a form that is
> remarkably easy to objectify, if only in appearance - the mouse pointer, an
> MP3 file, the selection tool (http://www.selectionasanobject.com/), a
> series of electronic gems (http://nicolassassoon.com/GEMS.html)… These
> things look like objects, act like objects, and (increasingly, as the
> distance between the digital and the physical closes,) feel like objects.
> Whether this is merely an ideological function of engineering or a matter
> of socio-cultural hallucination, the fact remains that "digital objects"
> are emerging as a contemporary phenomenon in need of critique...
>
>
> At any rate, I suppose the question now becomes whether the term “object”
> is merely a skeuomorphic metaphor used to make sense of the “stuff unlike
> any other,” or if an case can be made for the existence of digital objects.
> (I think several of us participating this month would like to make a case
> for the latter!) Furthermore, what work does and can the concept of
> "digital object" do for us? What insight might a conceptualization of
> digital objects provide us with that an understanding of the brute
> technicalities of computation cannot?
>
>
>
>
> ***
>
>
>
> Until next time,
>
>
> A.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
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